Keeping Our Minds On God

This is a big deal…keeping our minds stayed on God is important as written in Isaiah 26 : 4.  When the Scripture says “stayed” it means focused, fixed, anchored, unmoving.  How do we do this?  Well, as Paul writes in I Thessalonians 15 : 17, pray without ceasing.  So, psychologically, we really do become what we think and God expects us to be Christlike.  If we feed our minds garbage and trash, I promise you will end up feeling like garbage.

         Another thing is that emotions are NEVER facts and they are certainly NOT problems—emotions are signals that you have to dig through to identify the facts.  Certain emotions are what I consider identifiers and are good if reacted on properly.  For example, FEAR shows us what actually matters and things we care deeply about.  ANGER shows us that some sort of boundary has been crossed; and God’s word tells us in Ephesians 4 : 26 – 27 to control our anger to avoid allowing Satan to gain a foothold. 

         An interesting emotion that we all have is ANXIETY that I have found to be living and thinking about an uncontrollable future.  Jesus explains this clearly in Matthew 6 : 34.  Jesus reminds us to stay in the present and keep our minds on Him through constant prayer.

         Emotionally hyped church services once a week will never change your life.  Developing solid Christian habits WILL change your life.  When we develop solid Christian habits it draws us closer to God everything shifts.

         True repentance makes us realize that our past is simply a chapter, and not our whole story.  The key is to learn from that chapter and shift as necessary.  NEVER set up your mental camp there.  Now there will be times when someone or something triggers you to go and sit in that chapter, you have to pause, ground yourself with prayer.  Sometimes those triggers are like a mirror showing you where you need to heal through mental rigor and positive, righteous habits.

         I have found that CONTROL is mainly an illusion.  The only real power we have is ourselves and our choices—thus it is key to relinquish control to God.  At the end of the day, our thoughts shape us, our habits build us, and our choices define us.  All of this sounds like clinical psychology, but ALL of this can be found in the Scripture.

         Now, I have lived a life of horrible things said about me, all un-true, but anyone needs to do is accuse and the psychological and physical assault you assume is permanent.  I have realized the pain visits everyone without an invitation.  No one wants that.  Remember, people have an agenda and are evil to deflect their own guilt away from themselves.  The short-term suffering is what happens and what we feel when we allow it to stay and not let it leave us.  I prefer to allow the suffering and pain to teach me, help me guide others stuck in that muck and mire of despair.  I Scripturally and psychologically believe that all of those marks and wounds God gives us to shape us, mold us, make us better.  God didn’t shelter me as he wanted me to grow more with, by, and through Him when I choose Him over the pain and anguish.

         Now, you know me, I mix my Christian theology with psychology and of course history.  In 2009 President Obama stated that “the first country to recognize my country was Morocco” in his “A New Beginning” speech at Cairo University.  Talk about a “black swan” event.  Well, this is how Moroccan pirates recognized America’s independence…by demanding we pay a “tribute.”  They captured the American merchant vessel “Betsey” in 1784, and enslaved the sailors until America paid $30,000 in ransom, that would be equivalent to $6 million in today’s measure.  Guess that is why he and others flew plane loads of money to Iran.  In 1785 the Barbary Pirates captured the Dauphin and the Maria Boston, both under American flags, and enslaved the sailors in Algiers for 11 years.  These crew members were beaten and placed in the most harsh conditions.  So, Thomas Jefferson, who was trying to pay back Europe for the war debt of the Revolutionary War, asked the ambassador from Tripoli, Abdrahaman, why they were capturing American ships.  His response was simple and straight from the Quran.  According to him and the teaching of the Quran, it was according to the laws of the prophet.  All nations who did not acknowledge the prophet were sinners, and it was the right and duty of Muslims to plunder and enslave. Moreover, every Muslim who was killed in the warfare was guaranteed to go to “paradise.” 

         Continue letting this Muslim insurgency into our country to alter our culture.  Might not be a bad thing seeing all of the progressive left colored hair and screeching “no kings” rally goers covered in a burkha.  Be careful what you wish for ladies.  Only Jesus lives…remember that.

         Remember this point…Satan is a liar and has successfully convinced people to give up true freedom for free stuff.  Socialism and evil is how they catch wild pigs by just laying out free corn in a cage and they all just huddle in and then the trap is closed.  That my friends is Hell and so many will not realize it until the devil slams the gate closed.  We get caught on our greed and dependency to the wiles of evil.  Our nation will certainly fall without a devoted learning and application of the Scripture.  I can promise you that.  Our Christian ethic is what built this country and we have to fight to continue and increase that ethic.  History is us.  What will YOU do about it? 

Philosophy tells us to watch our thoughts, as our thoughts become our words, and we need to watch our words as they become actions.  But then we have to watch our actions as they become habits.  Your habits become your character, and in time, your character becomes your destiny.  

I will leave you with this.  A psychiatrist and panel of researchers at Johns Hopkins studied people who pray and analyzed their brain scans.  He found that during deep prayer the parietal lobe—that is responsible for our sense of boundaries—essentially where we are and the ethereal world begins.  These scans showed reduced activity.  People reported a loss of self-boundaries, a feeling of unity or infinite connection.  Not a hallucination in a clinical sense, but a measurable shift in the brain was processing self-awareness.

There was an activation of normally quiet brain networks.  Researchers observed increased activity in regions associated with deep empathy, attention, and cognitive control during such states of deep prayer.  This was described as a “flow-like” or deeply focused mental mode.  Instead of wasting energy on anxiety and internal noise, the brain shifts into a stable, low-noise state that improves clarity and emotional regulation.

During deep prayer a natural biochemical “bliss state” would occur without drugs.  The brain releases endorphins and dopamine in a balanced way without the crash associated with external stimulants.  This creates a state of calm pleasure and emotional stability thus increasing stress resilience and lower risk of cognitive decline later in life.

This “inner conversation” effected language areas.  Researchers were surprised most that language-processing regions behaved as if the person was receiving input rather than generating it.  The brain would simulate dialogue so vividly that it would feel external rather than self-produced.

The scientific conclusion: this ability is universal.  The capacity for these states is not rare or mystical—it is a built-in feature of the human brain.  Keeping our minds stayed on God and praying without ceasing heals the human brain.

Step up, its go time!!!